Rep. Paul Ryan said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that he didn’t voice his opposition to the government shutdown in 2013 because he wanted to ensure there was “party unity.”

“I don’t think it was constructive for conservatives to be carping at each other. At the same time, the purpose of that passage is to try and unify our party. I don’t think we can succeed if all we do is criticize and define what we are against,” he said.

Ryan wrote in his new book that came out last week that he believed the Republican attempt to defund Obamacare by shutting down the government was “a suicide mission” but that too many members of his own party were unwilling to abandon the idea for fear that they would be punished by outside groups aligned with the tea party.

He told CBS News’ Bob Schieffer that he didn’t believe the strategy was “really legitimate” because a government shutdown cannot stop an entitlement program, not to mention there was no support for the strategy in the Senate.

But the point of his book, he said, “to help design a unified conservative Republican movement that is principled, inclusive and aspirational so that we can win a majority of Americans’ votes to save this country from what I believe is going down the wrong track.”

When politicians make claims about what they did (or did not do) in the past, it’s sometimes helpful to consult the record.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Influential Republican congressman Paul Ryan disagreed on Sunday with the idea of using the threat of a government shutdown as a means of trying to get rid of President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law known as “Obamacare.”

Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee and a former vice presidential candidate, said he strongly backs the goal of repealing Obamacare but added there were other, more effective ways of achieving it than by refusing to approve any government funding bill that includes money for the program.

“I think there’s going to be a better strategy to actually achieve our goal of ultimately delaying and ultimately replacing Obamacare,” the Wisconsin congressman told the CBS talk show “Face the Nation.”

Note: the August 2013 comments were made on “Face the Nation” — the very same show where Ryan said this past Sunday that he had been silent in 2013. It takes a large pair of brass nerves to claim that you were “silent” about a topic, on the very same show where you held forth at length about the same topic one year earlier.

Above: a tight-lipped Paul Ryan keeps his mouth shut for the party’s sake

So why is Ryan obfuscating about this? Because his “silence” didn’t end in August 2013. In October 2013, he was spouting off to reporters again . . . this time trying to prevent a compromise that would have ended the shutdown. This is the embarrassing history that he needs to erase from our memories.

Boehner’s closest friends in the Senate, including Graham and Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), pleaded with him Friday to modify his legislation along the lines of what they were trying to broker across the Capitol. The speaker told them Saturday that the Collins plan would face opposition from too many Republicans for him to put it on the floor, Chambliss said.

“We don’t support it,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters, saying that the reasons for opposition were “too many to go into.”

Ah, the sounds of silence! Ryan wasn’t just spouting off to reporters about his opposition to the Senate compromise. He was actually rallying the troops against it:

[I]nstead of absorbing this painful reality, some rank-and-file Republicans grew visibly excited about the prospect of opposing such a deal, said one person in the room. This defiance was fed by Ryan, who stood up and railed against the Collins proposal, saying the House could not accept either a debt-limit bill or a government-funding measure that would delay the next fight until the new year.

According to two Republicans familiar with the exchange, Ryan argued that the House would need those deadlines as “leverage” for delaying the health-care law’s individual mandate and adding a “conscience clause” — allowing employers and insurers to opt out of birth-control coverage if they find it objectionable on moral or religious grounds — and mentioned tax and entitlement goals Ryan had focused on in a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Ryan’s speech appeared only to further rile up the conservative wing of the GOP conference, which has been agitating the shutdown strategy to try to tear apart the health-care law.

With such fervor still rampant among House Republicans, there was bipartisan agreement in the Senate that Boehner’s House had lost its ability to approve anything that could be signed by Obama into law.

My guess is that it is this leadership role in prolonging the government shutdown that Ryan is trying to whitewash.

The Obama administration and the Democrats hand us an embarrassment of riches, failed policy after failed policy, actions when taken – though few in number in a world filled with “opportunities” – ineffectual, at best and some of us choose to throw a good guy under the bus? To what end? #GloryHoleGenerals

What I think happened is that, at the height of the controversy, Paul Ryan got very quiet, and that’s what Bob Schieffer was talking about (the only thing wrong there was that he implied he knows Ruyan was opposed to this from the book, but he knew it because Paul Ryan had already opposed it – although against that, you could say, not reiterating it could mean he changed his mind, so only when the book came out wass it confirmed that he continued to think it was a bad idea)

You’re quoting Paul Ryan from the very beginning of August, 2013, not September or October, 2013, and I think Bob Schieffer was referring to that period of time…

In a meeting with the most ardent House conservatives, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, laid out a package focused on an overhaul of Medicare and a path toward a comprehensive simplification of the tax code.

Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, suggested on Tuesday that the government shutdown may not be resolved for more than two weeks.

That would come, he said, when the country reaches its debt limit.

Noting that previous agreements over the budget had come together around the deadline when the country has reached its statutory borrowing limit, Mr. Ryan said, “We think that will be the forcing mechanism to bring the two parties together. Our goal and motivation here is to get a budget agreement. And we think this is a way to do that.”

Biden was shamelessly mugging and disrupting Ryan who looked 15 years old. Somebody must have coached Biden and knew that Ryan did not have the stones to tell Biden to shut up. Sarah Palin did better in 2008 but even she did not interrupt Biden when he was lying, which was most of the time.

Recall during the debate Ryan took a powder on calling out Biden’s obvious asshattery. No sensible government lets Joe Biden do anything of importance. And Ryan did nothing to point that out. Further he was for MORE WAR above all else. His record is repleat with early stances of fiscal responsibility-followed by possum-like table-folding when push came to shove on almost every issue.

In short, like his former running mate, Ryan sounds tough and looks good in a suit. But he wants nothing to do with rocking the DC power structure boat.

Between Romney failing to run an actual campaign (lest he be called RAYCESS) and Ryan going along to get along, Please spare us the RINO feints to more of the same in 2016. To the institutional GOP; be prepared to run a real tough campaign with a candidate who 1. has genuine small government conservative ideals and 2. can finish a sentence expounding on them. Or simply usher into office Her Royal Highness Hillary Rodham Clinton on January 20th, 2017. They need to understand-this really is it. There’s no point to being Dem Lite.

And further while I would crawl over broken glass laced with bovine excrement to voye agaisnt here, there are not enough of us. ANd Clinton I, while not a great president nor a decent person, was not a bad president. The prospect of Clinton II does not scare many people. You have to ake the case for fiscal responsibility. Or forget it. Forever.

No, Clinton slashed the military and intelligence, ‘that was the army we had to go war with’ he signed the CRA revision, pushed the DOJ and HUD to bully the banks, which led to the subprime bubble, Hillary was willing to arm AQ’s minions in Libya and Syria, as much as her subsequent protestations

Yep. Seems they hate, loathe and fear the true conservatives and Tea Party types more (much, MUCH more) than they fear the Opposition Party. And, heh-heh, they’re QUITE WILLING to go on the offensive against us. Not-so-much against the Dems/ Progressives/ Statists/ Socialists. Hmmm…

32. daley, if you hadn’t noticed, I’m on a serious roll of late. Check the tape, a day before Ferguson I said, if not verbatim, “The Entitlement class will burn their homes, the DHS will crack down, the police will be decimated and turn tail and then we’ll see what Amerikkkas got”. Give it just 18 mo.

I ain’t saying I’m better than a blind squirrel, you’re just deaf, blind, mute, anencephalous and a feckless ankle-biter.

35. Have you noticed daley, German bunds are paying negative interest thru 2017? Goldman Sachs has already down-graded the stormin’ Q2 GDP from 3.0% to 1.5.

The Ebola outbreak has added Senegal and the Congo. Iceland’s this AM had a 5.2 and 5.6 quakes following yesterday’s 5.7. Obama is going to bomb everyone in Syria. Russia has sent another humanitarian convoy into the Ukraine. Finland is talking joining NATO. Hindis and Pakis are shooting each other officially daily. The UAE and Egypt are bombing Libya. ISIS just slaughtered Turkmen in Iraq(an engraved invitation to Erdogan)…

If this ain’t an acceleration into the abyss over last year, nothing will convince you.

35. Argentina is defaulted and the peso crashing. Japan contracted 6.8% Q1 on yearly basis. Half of all student loans behind on payment. France is getting its second cabinet since March. All of Europe is experiencing deflation, the Fed’s greatest fear.

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